After Delhi, Bengaluru becomes 2nd city to start ‘Human Milk Bank’

NewsBharati    10-Oct-2017
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Bengaluru, October 10: Bengaluru started the ‘Human Milk Bank’ which aims to provide pasteurized human breast milk to babies — premature or full-term — free of cost. After Delhi, Bengaluru became the second city to step ahead with this initiative. From today the breast milk bank started operation in Bengaluru.

 

The milk bank is run by an organization named the Amaara Breast Milk Foundation, which opened its first human milk bank in Delhi. The organisation has now opened its first branch in Bengaluru. The Amaara milk bank will be providing pasteurised human breast milk to premature neo-natal babies in order to provide them all-important nourishment and nutrition for healthy development.

"We started this in Delhi a year ago for mothers requiring milk for their premature babies or anyone who needs to provide babies with milk. In Delhi, more than 150 babies have been fed with the milk from Amaara and a lot of mothers have come forward to donate," said Dr Ankit Srivastava, the Co-Founder of Amaara.

"This is a new concept and we are yet to break the taboo amongst the mothers. We are encouraging mothers by educating them and creating awareness about this novel thing they can do voluntarily," Dr Srivastava added.

The main intention of Dr Srivastava is to aid those babies who die due to unavailability of breast milk. He aims at motivating people to help in saving such babies. The doctor even stated that many mothers were willing to donate their milk for this good cause in Bengaluru even before the inauguration of the milk bank. The process followed by the Amaara milk bank is based on the standard technology and methods followed in Europe.

"We call it a medical bank. The reason is that all the impurities are removed from the milk collected and only then is it fed to the babies. The collected milk is pasteurised and then stored in a cold storage before being given to a child," Dr Raghuram Mallaiah, director, neonatology, Fortis La Femme, and co-founder of Amaara, explained.